leader of an organization such as ours. this afternoon the president graciously accepted my resignation. the president for his part has issued a statement this afternoon and i'm quoting him. david petraeus has provided extraordinary service to the united states for decades. as director of the central intelligence agency he has continued to serve with characteristic intellectual rigor, dedication, and patriotism. by any measure through his lifetime of service david petraeus has made our country safer and stronger. today i accepted his resignation as director of the central intelligence agency. i am completely confident that the cia will continue to thrive and carry out its essential mission. i want to bring in, first of all, nbc's mike viqueira, who is live for us at the white house. mike, his letter cites his personal indiscretion. >> reporter: yes. >> but is there any indication that there could have been some

backstory to this? perhaps some threat of blackmail that may have prompted him to take this action? >> reporter: none whatsoever at this point, martin. at this point -- and details are still emerging, but you have to take this at face value. there are so few real surprises that we find anymore in washington in the lives of public officials. this certainly ranks among them. all day long ang dre ya mitchell who first broke the story, there was indication that something was up with general petraeus. you would get speculation about benghazi. and then came that statement from general petraeus that you just read saying that he had an extramarital affair and he had tendered his resignation. it turns out that happened yesterday here at the white house. he came to visit the president. he offered his resignation. he told the president why. the president called him back "today" and accepted that resignation and elevating now

mike morell, a career cia officer as interim head and let the speculation begin on what's going to be happening there and where it fits in the con sell laying of all these famous names moving about the cabinet at the outset of the second term. >> given the fact that the president met with the general yesterday, is there some suggestion or any suggestion that the president may have asked him to reflect for a little prior to sending this letter as he did today? >> reporter: that's a good question, and that's one of the first questions that we had as we -- chuck "today" and i and the people in our nbc booth in the white house sift through this and figure out exactly what happened. what was the delay? it's interesting when you consider the fact that general petraeus and the president alluded to the fact, here is an individual who was in the army for -- a four star gem, 37 years in the army, that happened to be the same number of years he's been married evidently. he led that surge in iraq. he largely was credited for that surge which many people credit as turning around the fortunes

of allied forces in iraq. he was turned to by president obama. you remember that the leader of forces, allied forces in afghanistan, general stanley mcchrystal, was ultimately fired by the president because of incendiary, controversial remarks he made in that "rolling stone" interview. the president turns to general david petraeus to lead another surge in another country, a predominantly muslim country in afghanistan, then calling petraeus home or at least here to washington in june of last year to lead the cia. this is certainly a bombshell by any measure, martin. >> to make that point, someone no less than senator dianne feinstein, who is chairman of the senate intelligence committee, today issued a statement saying, and i'm quoting her, i very much regret the resignation of david petraeus as director of the cia. this is an enormous loss for our nation's intelligence community and for our country. this is a huge loss, is it not? >> reporter: and dianne feinstein, who is as you mentioned the chairman of the

senate intelligence committee, said she would have fought for petraeus if petraeus had chosen to try to stay. but this obviously was a very personal decision by general petraeus. one must add given the sensitivity of the position he held, one that could not be said to be unexpected now that we know the facts. and another irony there is here we have general petraeus, if you recall during the iraq surge when it was first proposed when he first came before congress, there were many on the left who ridiculed what they saw as the escalation, the unwise escalation of -- >> i remember that very well, mike. >> and they called him general betray-ous. there was a big scene on capitol hill when he came to advocate for what he wanted to do militarily and strategically. again, he was credited with turning that war around because of that strategy he advocated. a long and illustrious career comes to a remember ignominious end here. >> i want to bring in jack

jacobs and jonathan alter a columnist for bloomberg. jack, are you surprised? >> oh, yes, i'm shocked. general petraeus has been a symbol of rectitude among military people for nearly 40 years. i knew him when he was a cadet at west point and i was teaching there. his wife hollies a the daughter of the superintendent of the military academy. great loss to the cia, to the country. very sad for the family and for the government and for the country. >> one assumes though, colonel, that given his position as heading what is obviously known as the silent service, that this kind of indiscretion in and of itself is something that many people sadly it happens in their lives but in relation to his position it made it impossible -- >> well, yeah, it would be i impossible, especially now,

especially in the circumstance in which the united states is under great threat and there's a wide variety of threats. there are problems between the executive branch and the congress in funding and so forth. you know, somebody once said not that long ago and says it repeatedly, if you fire at everybody who had had an indiscretion in washington, there would be absolutely left in town, but general petraeus and the cia are totally and completely different. a lot of it has to do with our expectations, particularly of the man, not just the position as the director of the cia, but the man. he was a symbol of rectitude in service and sacrifice, and it's such a shock that nothing else could have been done accept to have his resignation. >> john, the relationship between the president and general petraeus has been portrayed into its early formation as being tense and difficult but actually of late it's become much more mutually supportive and, indeed, in general petraeus' letter of

resignation he says of the president thank you for your extraordinary service to our country. clearly the relationship between the two had improved. indeed, none of us had expected his position in the cabinet to change, did we? >> not at all. if you turn the clock back to 2009, there was real concern among the political people in the white house that he was going to run for president on the republican party ticket. it sounds a little out there now, but these were, you know, top aides to the president who worried about that. not that petraeus was planning to do so, but they saw him as a potential political threat. that's how popular he was. that's how much stature he had after the iraq surge, and so there was some real distrust there initially. not necessarily from the president personally but from the president's team. then over time when they got to know each other, it was a relationship that really deepened into one of real mutual respect.

now, this is in the realm of speculation, martin, but just to pick up on colonel jacobs' comments, you can kind of get away with this kind of thing in almost any agency of government except the cia. and the reason is because when you go to work at the cia, they ask you, you know, have you ever had an extramarital affair, and if you have it can be harder, maybe even impossible, to get a job there. why? because you're open to blackmail. if you have a secret of any kind, this or something else, you are potentially open to blackmail. now, was general petraeus open to blackmail? absolutely not. but they have to be able to fire underlings who might be opening themselves up to blackmail because they have some kind of a deep, dark secret, and so it's very hard to be the person at the top who has had a secret if you need to in some cases fire underlings who have secrets. so it's just different when it's

the cia. >> sure. colonel jacobs, this indiscretion aside, general petraeus' performance in iraq, particularly during the surge, in afghanistan, was pret formidab formidable, wasn't it? he went into circumstances that were difficult and he managed to improve things. i recall during the surge and post surge the kind of insurgent violence against american forces and allied forces went down. this man was a tremendous leader in that sense. >> there's one big reason for that, and that is that he's a really, really smart soldier and a smart general. he knew that what we had on our hands was an insurgency and it wouldn't yield to the conventional use of the military power which had failed before in similar circumstances. he was a student of history. he no know what is we did with military service in vietnam and it 235i8d because we used it in a conventional way and it was an unconventional war.

both he and mcchrystal 2k3wr5ag there's only one way you can fight it. we know how to do it. all we have to do is have the political will to do it. and he embarked on that, on fighting with a conventional -- an unconventional way of doing things, and it had huge success. the failure, of course, at the end is we waited so long to do it properly that by the time we got started, a decade had passed and we didn't have the political will to carry on. indeed, no matter what else you can say about mcchrystal's performance, the fact that -- you could argue that he should have been fired after he made the speech in london, mcchrystal, but that he had the right way of doing things. he was absolutely right, it was going to take a decade. so petraeus was absolutely right. he was very, very good at what he did. at the end of the day we didn't have the political will to pursue it and we started too late.

that doesn't change what happened. >> but the manual he put together on counter insurgency is now one of the legendary -- >> it's scripture now, it's the equivalent. >> as the colonel said it may have succeeded for the british in malaysia, but it failed spectacularly for the americans in vietnam. it was resurrected by general petraeus that you can fight these counter insurgency wars and you can have some success with nontraditional military -- >> and that manual, by the way, although he had a big staff to help him write it, at the end of the day you could say that he wrote it. he edited the whole thing. >> he's a brilliant guy. >> this is a man with a ph.d. from princeton. mike viqueira at the white house, there's been speculation that leon panetta was expected to be replaced at defense. how much does this now complicate matters for the president? >> a good question. i think that specktation continues. obviously, we're talking about a

lot of different positions if you want to talk about cabinet agencies in the second term. obviously secretary of state clinton this, some sitting senators who have been known to harbor some ambitions for some of these cabinet positions, where they end up, a big parlor game there. i think just at first blush they're going to take their time with the cia posting. i don't know if it directly affects what leon panetta is going to do. obviously, leon panetta has a lot of institutional knowledge hague not only served at the white house and in congress but as the dci, director of central intelligence before moving over to the defense department. so all of that very much up in the air. i would imagine that they're sort of going to stand pat where they are with by all accounts a very competent individual, the deputy director stepping in at least for now in an interim role. >> mike, jack jacobs, and jonathan alter, please stay with us. much more ahead.

if you're just joining us, we have breaking news. cia director david petraeus has resigned. he handed his resignation letter to the president just a short time ago citing an extramarital affair as the reason. for more analysis, we're here with colonel jack jacobs, jonathan alter, mike viqueira who is at the white house, joining us also in washington is michael crowley. thank you all. jonathan, to what extent does this resignation complicate the president's foreign policy? because as i understand it, general petraeus was responsible for running a number of the drone attacks that were operating particularly on the pakista pakista pakistan/afghanistan border. >> those are cia operations, they're classified but kind of open secrets at this point, and

one of the big changes in washington in the last five years or so is that much of what had traditionally been under the purview of the pentagon moved over to the cia because they had to do things like, you know, violate pakistani air space and that sort of thing. i don't tend to think it will complicate u.s. foreign policy. i don't see it leading to any change in policy. it's just the loss of a good and very bright man. >> yeah. colonel jack, officials say that general petraeus' deputy, michael morell, will serve as interim director of the cia. what do we know about michael morell? >> very well thought of inside the organization and ems where, particularly in congress and at the white house. >> a career intelligence -- >> career intelligence -- effectively a career intelligence guy. very capable, extremely steady and very well thought of.

and this is, of course, the highest position he has or will ever hold. the likelihood is he will be replaced as soon as they can find somebody who is more politically oriented, more satisfactory in a political sense to the white house, but they can leave him there for a long time doing this. he's done it for a long time and is very well thought of. >> there's a history of cia directors being rejected by the senate when their confirmation comes up. it's a very hard job to fill. jimmy carter when he first became president nominated theodore sorenson, the former kennedy aide. he was rejected by the senate because he had been a conscientious objector during world war ii. bobby ray inman, who had a distinguished naval career, he was rejected in the first bush administration. so, you know, it's not going to necessarily be all that easy to fill this post. >> michael crowley of "time" magazine, we know that general petraeus was due to appear or is

due to appear on thursday before a congressional committee that's investigating what happened in benghazi. do you think that this resignation will have an affect on whether he appears in person or will that job be taken on this occasion by his deputy? >> i don't know the answer to that, martin. i wouldn't want to venture a wild guess. i would say that that was going to be a difficult and awkward appearance for petraeus. it will be if he still goes. probably the most difficult political moment of his career. some of the recent reporting on what happened in benghazi suggests that if there was a security lapse, the cia may well have been to blame. that the state department consulate was also being guarded by cia forces that were personnel that were based in this annex which appears to have been a cia building. now, there's some dispute and murkiness around this, but some

of the reporting from about a week or so ago suggests that the state department people thought that the cia kind of had the security covered. there were warnings coming from within that compound that security was not good enough and people were very worried about their safety, and so the question for petraeus and his subordinates is were you supposed to have this covered? did you realize there was a larger security threat than could be handled? are you to blame for this? i don't think petraeus has ever really had to answer questions quite that tough before. the closest comparison would be when he went up and essentially told people to have patience with the surge in iraq and that the surge was working, but i feel like he had a little bit more of an upper hand in that situation. will he actually turn up to testify? i don't know. i don't want to just guess at it. >> but equally, michael -- sorry, i was going to ask jack actually, colonel jack, the situation in relation to benghazi is still complicated. throughout the presidential campaign it was the president who was being attacked by

republicans as being somehow responsible and the state department. what michael crowley was just saying was that actually emerging evidence suggests it may well have been the cia that to some extent had some responsibility in terms of fault. >> i will give you my view as a ground soldier. i spent plenty of time in combat this situations a lot like the one that occurred in benghazi. when you have small arms, automatic weapons, rocket propels grenades and mortars used in concert that's a preplanned usually prerehearsed attack. did not happen spontaneously. to the extent the white house said this is the result of a spontaneous demonstration, that's complete and total nonsense. anybody who ever wore the uniform could have told them that and may have told them that in which case there's some dissembling of the facts at the time that was said. having said all that, this is a very difficult thing to say, but ambassador stevens had absolutely, positively no

business being in enbenghazi with two cia agents or 100 cia agents. the country was unsecure, the country was in the middle of a violent revolution. he had been in the area a long time. new exactly what a really bad situation looked like, could recognize it, and really had no business being there. so there was some complicity at the state department about that. there was no reason for him to be there. you couldn't generate the kinds of forces that you woot require to defend the place in short order given a rotten situation that was taking place. there's a lot of blame going around. you could argue that the cia should have known this was a really rotten situation and could have sent a lot more agents there. if i are were the director of the cia i would argue i have no business sending more agents down there at a time when what you needed was for the

ambassador to get the heck out of there. >> thank you all. stay with us. much more ahead. final for the your business entrepreneurs of the week. kathleen bailey and susan kad are encouraging customers to shop local. they created the monthly ladies night in the maginot la park area of burbank, california, to boost sales by staying home late. be sure to support your local retailers on november 24th for the third annual small business saturday. for more watch "your business" this sunday morning at 7:30 on msnbc. ♪ ♪

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amid the breaking news of the resignation of general petraeus, we would be remiss not to mention that on sunday the nation will pause to remember all the men and women who have served and continue to serve with such distinction in the united states armed services. and in a true model of service to their fellow citizens, hundreds of military veterans from across the country are uniting to help storm victims here in new york and new jersey. this weekend nine of the largest veterans organizations in the country are deploying teams to help rebuild areas in the disaster zone. today we salute these veterans and may their allegiance and service be an example to us all. keep it here. we'll be right back. ♪

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now to the president freshly re-elected and now setting the table for negotiations with capitol hill inviting congressional leaders to the white house next week for urgent talks on the fiscal cliff. this is no exaggeration because early next year trillions of dollars in tax increases and automatic spending cuts will come into effect. and so in his first public statement since tuesday's emphatic victory, the president pushed for a deal on tax cuts for the middle class arguing there's no reason for them to be linked to tax cuts for the wealthy. >> let's not wait. even as we're negotiating a broader deficit reduction package, let's extend the middle class tax cuts right now. it would immediately take a huge chunk of the economic uncertainty off the table. >> the president said that his re-election means that voters support what he called a balanced approach to deficit reduction. meaning that historically low rates for higher earners should

now expire. >> i refuse to accept any approach that isn't balanced. i am not going to ask students and seniors and middle class families to pay down the entire deficit while people like me making over $250,000 aren't asked to pay a dime more in taxes. this was a central question during the election. it was debated over and over again and on tuesday night we found out that the majority of americans agree with my approach. >> the president's remarks came just hours after house speaker john boehner did his own version of setting the table locking up the good silver and cooking up a romneyesque scheme for more revenue without raising rates on upper income taxpayers. >> i don't want to box myself in, i don't want to box anybody else in. it's clear that there are a lot of special interests loopholes in the tax code, both corporate and personal. there are all kinds of deductions. some of which make sense, others

don't, and by lowering rates and cleaning up the tax code, we know that we're going to get more economic growth. >> in other words, mitt's legacy lives on, but what about that electoral trouncing of the republican candidate just this past tuesday? >> it's clear that as a political party we've got some work to do, and i think the principles of our party are sound. but how we talk about wholt we are as a party is clearly conversations are under way and will continue. >> i see. it's not the policy, it's a just how we talk about how we talk about the gop. okay, great. let's get right to our panel in washington. msnbc political analyst karen finney and my colleagues toure and msnbc contributor joy reid also managing editor of thegrio.com. >> toure, the president said today that his election victory was based on the american people wanting a balanced and responsible approach to the deficit.

so here is the question. does speaker boehner remain faithful to grover norquist or does he respond to the american people? >> the answer is the former. grover norquist is the actual head of the republican party, so they will continue this two decade thing of we don't raise taxes for any reason at all no matter what. even when the american people speak and say we want that balanced approach that the president wants. >> even when 60% of the people came out of exit polls sand said we believe that taxes should be raised on the most wealthy. >> yes, yes. the party was tarred as the party of the wealthy. that's a large reason why they lost, and yet they come back and they say, we're going to defend the right of the top 2% to not have to pay more. do they want to lose again in 2016 and 2020? i think they do because they don't want to change. the principles of the party are not in trouble. that is absolutely wrong. >> karen, mitch mcconnell, who hasn't been seen since tuesday's be election, issued this statement. he says, i wasn't sent to washington to raise anybody's

taxes to pay for more wasteful spending, and this election doesn't change my principles. >> yes. >> does that sound like the cooperation, conscientious, and the common sense that the president is looking for? >> no. and if you combine that with the rhetoric we've been hearing from a number of the right wing conservatives about this is really about the people voted for president obama want free stuff, it sure sounds a lot like what mitt romney was saying in that fund-raiser about the 47% of americans. >> uh-huh. >> it really sounds like these guys not only don't get it, they don't care what the americans want. they have their agenda. they have their ideology, and they're still going to try to pursue it, not recognizing that it was roundly rejected, but here is the most important thing. we, the people, will have to be the ones who hold them accountable. i think the president will obviously fight it, but this goes to something that the president has talked about many times, which is there is more work to be done and we have to make sure that we apply the political pressure to hold these

guys accountable. >> joy, karen is absolutely right and toure, they are not listening. they have learned nothing. >> yeah. >> literally in the heat of election defeat, they have learned nothing. >> and there was a ceo that even wrote an open letter to the president saying, mr. president, we're ready to work with you by having you do everything mitt romney was going to do -- >> of course. >> so if you just do that, we're happy to come to the table. but, look, the thing is there is a form of discipline that's going to be imposed on republicans whether they like it or not, whether they recognize the election happened or not. it's going to happen on december 31st. because the president can simply say, okay, guys if you don't want to work with me on extending the middle class tax cuts and raising -- we're talking about going back to the bill clinton rates. we're not talking about going back to the rates before john -- >> we're talking 2% of this country. >> exactly. 2%. >> exactly. you're talking about 400 families that are going to pay substantially more and by the way, everyone gets a tax cut up to $250,000, not just the people who make under $250,000. it's just after that you get a

tax increase. on december 3 1st, all the bush tax cuts go and republicans will suddenly magically come back to the table to get any tax cuts. >> the thing that karen has been talking to me about on e-mail and phone calls is that they keep saying -- >> how dare you speak to one of our preferred contributor privately but carry on. >> the republicans say we don't want to give away free stuff. we can't out give them in the free stuff. that's wh they think people of color and poor people want is free stuff. that's not what we want but that shows how out of touch they are. they think if they put a marco rubio on those policies that are hostile, then they're going to make up the difference. >> everyone will be persuaded. >> it's a mad man party in a modern family world and as long as they think it's about giving away free stuff to people of color and poor people, they're going to continue losing over and over and over. >> karen, well, but also that's why i made the connection to the 47% comment because the truth is it's not -- most -- the majority of people who voted for

president obama, he has now twice won with the broadest coalition of americans in the history of our country. that's black, that's white, that's old, that's young -- >> none of them are relevant to the republican party. why are you even mentioning them? women? why are you mentioning them? mitch mcconnell doesn't recognize those groups. keep going. >> no, he doesn't, and that's fine for him for now but we're going to make him recognize us if he doesn't get back in line. they're completely out of touch with the country they're living in. i will just say it, the bottom line is we have to be the ones who hold them accountable. we have to be the ones who say you can't ignore the results of tuesday. >> joy, someone no less than the nobel laureate paul krugman has suggested to the president that don't even bother to the negotiate with them. go to the fiscal cliff and fall off. it. >> i think it's given a lot of the beltway media i have to say and a lot of people on wall street this excuse to make it

sound like on january 1st, the world would literally end. what would happen is number one, negotiations would begin immediately to restore the middle class parts of the tax cut and there would be sort of a slow but, you know, it could be potentially serious if it went on too long but i doubt it would go on very long. once you hit january 1st, republicans will be sobered up immediately. they will realize the election of 2012 did happen and they'll have to come back to the table. >> we may just have to wait -- >> on "the cycle" we call it the gradual fiscal slope, it's not a cliff. >> thank you. good-byes are tough as we know, especially to those who brought us all such great pleasure, so you take a deep breath and remember these words by the late great dr. seuss. don't cry because it's over. smile because it happened. here are today's "top lines." >> i have just called president obama to congratulate him on his victory. >> we may have battled fiercely but it's only because we love

this country deeply. >> i served in government but i didn't inhale. i'm still a business guy. >> asked tough questions and she did exactly what jur supposed to do. she didn't answer them. >> we've given our people need to know and understand about our financial situation. >> gosh, i feel like i'm almost a new hampshire resident. >> my mother and father dreamed as much as any rich guy dreams. >> i accept your nomination for president of the united states. >> what do you mean shut up? >> the next president of the united states paul ryan. >> my veins run with cheese. teach a man how to fish, he can feed himself for a life. don't simply feed fish. >> there are 47% who are with him who are dependent upon government. president obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans. >> climate change is not a hoax. more droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. it's called romnesia. it's like robin hood in reverse. governor romney doesn't have a

five-point plan, he has a one-point plan. >> i can't believe all these guys sitting here. >> we have fewer horses and bayonets. >> i love you women. >> be the absolute last resort. >> from the reagan years. >> it too take me too long to go through the map. >> what did bill clinton call it. >> arithmetic. >> brought us binders full of women. >> it's almost like an etch-a-sket etch-a-sketch. ♪ god shed his grace on thee >> i like seeing the lakes. i love the lakes. i love cars. any old girlfriends here? >> you know what? they won, but it's like you cheat. 2550 let's talk about low-cost investing. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 at schwab, we're committed to offering you tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 low-cost investment options-- tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 like our exchange traded funds, or etfs tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 which now have the lowest tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 operating expenses tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 in their respective tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 lipper categories. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 lower than spdr tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and even lower than vanguard. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 that means with schwab, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 your portfolio has tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 a better chance to grow.

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the president said today his re-election proved americans wanted a balanced approach to dealing with the deficit. but the conservative common tear yacht has had enough of reality for one week so they've gone back to the tind fer kind of attacks that were dismissed as knob sense on tuesday. >> the demographics are

changing. it's not a traditional america anymore, and there are 50% of the voting public who want stuff. they want things. >> if mitt romney cannot win in this economy, then the tipping point has been reached. we have more takers than makers, and it's over. >> joining us here in new york is jimy williams, an msnbc contributor, and from washington julian epstein, a democratic strategist. thank you, gentlemen, both for being with us. julian, i know conservatives don't want fact checkers dictating this election, but the makers/takers argument doesn't actually hold water because bloomberg reports 70% of counties with the fastest growth in food stamp aid during the last four years voted republican in 2008. why do they keep pushing this false notion? >> because they need a fall guy as comfort food, and it's a silly argument. it's not just the bloomberg

data. if you look at who gets most of the safety net expenditures in the country, it's seniors. they're one of the few demographics that republicans overperform on. also if you look at red states versus blue states relatively, red states pay fewer tacks and get more benefits than do blue states. bill clinton has a great line that if you want to live like a republican, you should vote for a democrat because democrats will give you better economics. and that's, in fact, true. if you compare job performance under democratic presidents versus republican presidents over the last say 30 years, you will find that democrats on average produce far, far more jobs than do republicans. the problem for republicans is that they have an intellectually bankrupt economic policy and they've got a social policy that is worthy of the john burch society. these are the reasons the republicans lost and the fact the republicans can't face this, these facts, and understand and deal with them, it's not just that it is ingracious or

ungracious in defeat and a lack of grace in defeat, it's also that they just don't want to understand that this is a changing country, this is a changing country demographically and they don't want to understand exactly the many reasons that they lost this election, and that's frankly good news for democrats if they don't want to face reality. >> but that's bad news, isn't it, jimmy, for republicans? >> i think it's bad news for the country. i like a healthy two-party little system. >> everybody does. >> we were founded in 1789, and this is how we've been doing it ever since. we're a young democracy but we're the best, and i like having a healthy debate between the two parties. i think that's good for america. america likes it as well. the problem is weevil deinvolved now into sort of a race to the bottom. >> one of the parties is in another milky way, into another intergalactic galaxy. it doesn't seem they have recognized anything that happened on tuesday. >> i said before that i thought that mitt romney was a terrible candidate not because he didn't have ideas but because he had no

core. and here is the problem with republican party at this point in time. they tell women what to do with their bodies, tell gays vote for us, we have a big tent but once you vote for us we'll screw you when it comes to discrimination. they tell latinos, you know what? we want you to be in our party but they vote against the dream act. this is an inherently big -- it's a moral problem. the great irony is they quote morality when doing these things and saying that women need to have transvaginal probes and saying to gays, it's okay to be separate but equal. i thought we finished separate but equal in this country in the 1960s. it's okay to say to latinos in this country, you're not here through any fault of your own, your parents brought you here and you're still a second class citizen. >> one of the things you haven't explained to me is how the republican party manages to persuade people to vote against their own interests. how does that happen? >> well, that's spin. and -- >> it must be more than spin. >> no, it's spin. the american people -- frankly, i don't think a lot of the

american people give a damn what happens in washington, d.c. i don't think they pay any attention to it. if only hatch of the voting age population votes, doesn't that tell you everything that you need to know? that means half of the electorate doesn't care what happens in washington, d.c. they care about the cost of gas or the cost of milk or cost of tuition, et cetera, et cetera. the problem is if they don't care and they're doing nothing about it, then the bozos in washington, d.c., can get by with the crap they pull every week. >> julian -- sorry, go ahead. >> i was going to say, we're living in an anti-incumbency era. if you look at the last four election cycles, in 2006 the democrats got the house and in 2008 obama won. 2010 the democrats lost the congress. the question is how was obama able to break that cycle? he was able to break that cycle because he won this election but as much as he won it, republicans lost. and i think mitt romney actually overperformed for the republicans. if you look at all the polling data, all the social stuff that jim ji was talking about, most of the voting public finds that

stuff odious. the views on imgraths, the views on women's issues, a whole host of social issues. secondly there, is no message on the economy. they have nothing other than johnny one note on cutting taxes. we've talked about taxes are at 15% of gdp right now. it ain't an economic policy. it isn't intellectually bold. isn't intellectually defensible and that's the problem for the republicans. yes, i agree we want to have a healthy two-party system but it's not going to happen until the republicans do some soul searching. >> julian, jimmy, thank you so much. do stay with us. more to come. it ain't an economic policy. much.

we're back with more on the resignation of general david petraeus as head of the cia citing an extramarital affair. michael hastings has written about general petraeus in "rolling stone" and in his book "the operators." i joins us from chicago. mike, could you put general petraeus' career in con ftext f us? >> sure. i mean, you're dealing with one

of the most influential and historic generals in modern american military history. i would have to say on a level of reporting, it's very bizarre what we're seeing unfold today, and, in fact, the idea that it's going to be an extramarital affair where people finally start examining general petraeus' record very closely to me is very ironic. i think general petraeus has gotten a pass by most of the media outlets. they've glorified him in a way that was well beyond what was really deserved, and i think if we go back and look at his record from what he actually did in iraq in terms of setting up this disastrous iraqi training program to the plan he pushed in afghanistan, which afghanistan now is worse than it was before the petraeus plan, to transforming the cia into essentially a paramilitary organization, and to the latest intelligence failure in benghazi where we find out that essentially it was a cia operation going on there, the idea that -- the fact he was sleeping with somebody else besides his wife, that that's

the thing that's going to bring him down to me is very bizarre. >> that's a fairly harsh assessment of a man who is regarded by many people in the military as an outstanding four-star general. >> well, i mean, i think that -- he might be an outstanding four-star general and everything i said also might be true. what i have tried to do in my reporting on him is give a counter narrative to the man known as king david. he's extremely ambitious. one of the most memorable quotes that another general told me about general petraeus was he leaves the dead dog on your doorstep every time. that means every new assignment he would take over, he would try to make the guy before him look like it was their fault. i think that -- >> michael -- >> as i said, i think he's been giving a past. >> michael hastings, i'm afraid we've run out of time but thank you so much. and we'll be right back. a winter wonderland doesn't just happen. it takes some doing. some coordinating.

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it's time now to "clear the air." and as the republican party picks over the ruins of its own disastrous performance this week, there is one other thing that we can all be thankful for because after 30 years of taking christianity hostage and claiming that the church was really the republican party at prayer, this election actually revealed that the church is owned by neither democrats nor republicans. of course, during the campaign paul ryan, just like jerry falwell in the $1,980 and pat robertson in the 1990s tried to claim that his party best represented the traditions of orthodox christianity. on one o kaths mr. ryan contrasted himself with the president proudly asserting his own faith. >> hey, i'm a catholic deer hunter. i am happy to be clinging to my guns and my religion. >> good try, mr. ryan, but it didn't work because his budget that bishops in his own church condemned as being more in touch

with selfish, secular philosophy than the gospel of jesus christ, and then as the election got ever closer plshtion ryan took part in a last-minute conference call with evangelical christians. in a desperate attempt to play the religion card, mr. ryan accused the president of taking america on a dangerous path that restricts freedom and liberty and judeo-christian values. but that, too, didn't wash. in fact, in some states the president actually did better among white evangelicals than he did four years ago. and he also won more catholics than his republican challenger. and that should come as a relief to a nation that for decades has had to put up with politicians taking religion hostage for their own personal gain. because although the president himself sf a committed christian, it wasn't his faith that won this election. it was his values.